The present invention relates to a detachable bracket forming a wall bottom skirting permitting the fixing of electrical and/or fluid connections and the concealment of the cables and ducts associated with said connections.
The interest of such skirtings is widely recognized, because they make it possible to place various electrical and/or fluid connections at the bottom of the wall, said connections being accessible from the rear. In addition, the cables and connections are concealed so as to provide an aesthetically satisfactory assembly.
These skirtings or brackets must have an adequate mechanical strength to withstand the transverse stresses produced by the installation and pulling out of the connectors. The fixing of these wall bottom skirtings must be able to withstand transverse stresses, but must still permit the easy assembly and disassembly thereof in order to give access to the rear of the connections for the purpose of carrying out connections between cables and/or ducts or for repair and maintenance interventions. It is also advantageous to install these skirtings and carry out the connections in the final construction phase, particularly after covering the floor.
The manufacture of such skirtings or brackets must be brought about by using materials of a non-onerous nature and in particular plastics materials, which are able to combine aesthetic and electrical insulation requirements.
Various bracket or skirting types are known making certain compromises between some of the aims indicated hereinbefore.
In this field reference is made to a compact wall bottom skirting (French Patent 2,225,858), whose covering section is equipped with electrical conductors placed in longitudinal channels. The positioning of this section is vertically regulatable.
Another type of skirting (French Patent 2,266,342) aims at obviating the fundamental disadvantage of the impossibility of fitting after laying the floor covering by using height-regulatable retaining and fixing means.
According to a different concept making use of superimposed shielded conduits having rectangular sections (French Patent 2,588,425), whose front and upper face covers permit the fixing of connectors, it is possible to directly energize apparatuses placed above the said conduits forming the skirting.
Improvements have been made to the various existing skirting types, particularly with respect to their mechanical resistance to the transverse stresses produced by the installation or pulling out of an electrical connector (French Patent 2,555,371) by constructing boxes forming superimposable cabinet units, whose front face cover is provided with slits giving access to conductor rails.
However, all these cabinet units, boxes, shielded conduits and brackets forming wall bottom skirtings are intended to satisfy precise objectives, namely the putting into place of the skirting after laying the floor covering, the energizing of electrical apparatuses in the upper part of the skirting, mechanical resistance to transverse stresses, etc. Generally their design permits their construction from drawn metal parts or the extrusion of plastics materials in such a way that their cost is taken into account.
The necessity of combining esthetics and an easy use of the connections under good safety conditions frequently leads to complicated devices, whose robustness does not permit numerous disassemblies for various interventions relating to the connecting of the connections.
This is one of the reasons why the skirtings must have a robust design, so that their putting into place is not considered as definitive, their detachability being one of the fundamental aims. These skirtings or brackets must make it possible to conceal and maintain in position cables and ducts, thus facilitating the restoration of rooms without any action on the foundations.